[ELECTRIFIED]

So you liked the new one?

Yes.  I maintain my philosophical disagreement with the entire Abramsverse, but I can't say anything bad about the movie itself.


As far as a TV shows, all the Battlestar Galactica fans freaked out about the rebooted series, but then they all came around because it was so good.  I think the same thing would end up happening with an Abrams Star Trek series, assuming it had all of the actors from the movies.

The original BSG was vapid, excessively derivative, and forgettable. Its remake, in contrast, is probably the most intelligent space opera ever made (even if its conclusion leaves plenty to be desired).

That's not at all the situation with Abrams' movies. The Star Trek universe, despite its numerous flaws, is thoughtful, influential, and culturally important. The Abrams films took a few characters and ideas from that universe, drained them of all their complexity and subtlety, and ELECTRIFIED them. If you enjoy shiny crap and explosions, then I guess that's fine. If you'd prefer something with interesting themes and characters, or if you have a longer attention span than your typical ADD case, Abrams Trek might not work for you.

I strongly agree with this. The first rebooted film is simply weak. I'm strugling with myself about this new one. The child trekker on me just keep saying "whatch it! watch it! watch it!", while the adult SF fan answers "bullsh!t! bullsh!t! bullsh!t!".

Brazilian state championships ended today. Main state champions:

Rio de Janeiro - (ended two weekends ago) Botafogo (current Seedorf's team) beat current Brazilian champion Fluminense;
São Paulo - Corinthians stopped what would be an unseen four-in-a-row for Santos;
Minas Gerais - Atlético Mineiro (2012 Brasileirão's runner up, current Ronaldinho's team) beat Cruzeiro;
Rio Grande do Sul - Internacional is three-in-a-row Gaucho champion;
Bahia - Vitória humbled Bahia by 7x1 at the last game.

Atlético Mineiro and Fluminense are clearly the stronger teams in the country today (Fluminense lost the state dispute mainly because the players were tired, due disputing the local championship and the Libertadores de/da América Cup at the same time), but both Rio's and São Paulo's champions are  very near their level. Cruzeiro is hiking such a position, too, and was able to stand their main rival's current power, even beating them in the last game, despite not being able to secure the local championship.
Brasileirão Série A starts 25/5. Atlético Mineiro and Fluminense are still disputing the Libertadores ('Galo' will face Tijuana, while 'Flu' faces Paraguay's Olympia), so their games dates might be changed to avoid players' exhaustion.

Can we throw his body down from a plane?

Hashimoto might actually be the worst major politician in any rich democracy.

I'm trying to remember who could make worse statements in poor democracies.

I know that I shoud finish the Dudu Beleza narrative and pass on to Marina, but I'm on that lazy week after vacations. Maybe sunday.

On a small note,

Marina Silva defended and gave an eulogy to the polemic deputy Pr. Marco Feliciano, a fundamentalist who managed to be chosen president of the congress' Human Rights comission. LGBT's, blacks and feminists are in a giant hiss, since then (together with everyone who is not a fascist pig).

Every friend of mine who voted for her 'xingou muito no twitter' (stupid meme), i.e., put in every virtual community that they wouldn't vote for her anymore. It seems that she is exchanging young bobos (her main urban vote in 2010) for fundamentalist christians.

Bad move, IMO.

If she continues that way, my family may vote for her.

If I remember well what you tell about your family, they seem a perfect target for Dudu Beleza. Marina will probably take the poorer conservatives, if she maintain this course.

I was joking, they'll vote for Neves, even if they don't like him, for sure (one of my aunts may vote for Silva: she voted for her in the 1st round in 2010, then switched to Serra).

Oh, I've noticed. Nothing better than a good sarcasm with deadpan. This doesn't mean that we can't keep the joke and make the discussion serious, doesn't it?

Not sure SD should be before KD.

Well, there is a clear exchange beteen SD and the Moderates, with many months in which the parties bars boudaries varied, but SD's right boundary didn't, and there is one month in which SD/KD boundary varied, but SD/Mod didn't. Sure, I know this may mean nothing, due chain vote changing, but I thought that trying to observe this on the long run could lead to interesting analisys.
The current month has only one poll, so I'm waiting to see if the probable exchange directly between KD/Mod that seems visible (the only one, until now) will be sustained.

A Judge from Rio de Janeiro said that he wouldn't accept the orders of the CNJ. Rio will wait before gay marriage is completely allowed. Anyway, once more the Brazilian Judiciary is reforming this country while the Chamber of Deputies prefers not even debating those issues seriously!

Superique, I agree with this state of things. For me, it is a matter of constitutional interpretation, lawmaking should only support what the judiciary branch rules.
As for the Carioca judge, I really hope the CNJ shall finally start acting and dismiss a judge who believes to be above the whole law system. Bu,t given the level of corporatism we know there is in the judiciary, this won't happen.

New month, new polls





I've organized the parties in a way that big changes on one side of the bar for each party do not impact the other side (i.e., trying to read the patterns of voting exchange). Critics will be wellcomed.

I think most south-americans are entering the 'defence of any kind of family' mode, just like New England. Today I've heard the following conversation:

"– So, his son turned out to be gay? Poor guy."
"– Yeah, the boy had got a husband."
"– Seriously? How nice!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv5O9Df7bPw

This never gets old.
And I had never imagined that a song ridicularizing machismo would be so popular.

I hear a lot of the gays travel to Brazil to sample the 'Big Plantain'.

There's a part of Ipanema beach where it's quite rare to see straight people any time of the day. There is also another part where it's impossible not getting stoned while you're breathing, so maybe this could be the next liberation issue, if we believe Rio is still the country's tendencies shaper.

Well, the inequality in the path to obtain marriage is still there, unfortunely, but lots of people (including many of my gay friends and acquitances) still agrees it's a good solution.
Brazilians are insanely traditionalists. The main reason for the legalization of SSM not starting a huge reaction like in France is because the STF represents power, so, if they say it's right, you should just shut up and obey. A rare case of a fascistic mindset allowing a liberating cause to win.

Once obtained, however, there is no difference between SSM and traditional mariage, they are done under the same law and documentation - and gives the spouses the same rights.

BTW, a semi-old meme:






The new Dark Knight


EDIT: The STJ (Supreme Justice Court - the imediate court under the STF) ruled that it's possible for SS couples to marry directly, but its a process which is not 'consolidated' yet, so it seems that it won't be long before we have the first couples married under equal conditions. It will be a nice accomplishment for a traditionalist country which is also the only one to never have criminalized homossexuality under its own laws.

Presente.

If we can be called latinos when we're still in our homecountries (and if Portuguese speakers counts).

Are you founding the César Chaves Union for Latinos Online - CCULO?

On a small note,

Marina Silva defended and gave an eulogy to the polemic deputy Pr. Marco Feliciano, a fundamentalist who managed to be chosen president of the congress' Human Rights comission. LGBT's, blacks and feminists are in a giant hiss, since then (together with everyone who is not a fascist pig).

Every friend of mine who voted for her 'xingou muito no twitter' (stupid meme), i.e., put in every virtual community that they wouldn't vote for her anymore. It seems that she is exchanging young bobos (her main urban vote in 2010) for fundamentalist christians.

Bad move, IMO.

If she continues that way, my family may vote for her.

If I remember well what you tell about your family, they seem a perfect target for Dudu Beleza. Marina will probably take the poorer conservatives, if she maintain this course.

As I had put in an other thread, SSM is legalized since the 2011 supreme court rule about civil partnerships.

The problem was that some notaries were refusing to sign the papers, saying that they were not obliged to do it. Now they are .

Wierd. I expected Turks to be near the Turkish border, not in the northeast near Romania.

Its Southern Dobruja, a border area that was repeatedly settled by various migrating or deposed groups (Tatars 1512-14, Gagausians etc.), especially during the Ottoman era. The first Turks came in 1280 and the Ottomans needed a loyal population to secure the area. Most of the Bulgarian population came as settlers in the 19th century.

No, Southern Dobruja is a much smaller region and only the western part of it has a high Turkish population. Also there is no reliable evidence of Turkish settlement in the 13th century. The first Turkish settlers arrived in the 14th century, after the Ottoman conquest.
You are right that the region has such a high Turkish population due to strategic settlement during the Ottoman era. Also, due to the proximity to the northern border of the Ottoman Empire, many Bulgarians emigrated over the centuries to Romania and Russia. Most of those who remained were either absorbed by the Turkish settlers or at least became Turkish speaking (which is the most likely origin of the Gagauz).

There are some oddities in their dialect that doesn't fit southwest turk languages, and are believed to be related to northwest turkic. Many linguists link this to the cumans/kipchaks or even to the original bulgars (in this version, they would be bulgars (or cumans) who didn't adopt the slavic language and, later, started to adopt the southwestern turk dialect but preserving some features of their ancestral northwest turkic languages.

On a small note,

Marina Silva defended and gave an eulogy to the polemic deputy Pr. Marco Feliciano, a fundamentalist who managed to be chosen president of the congress' Human Rights comission. LGBT's, blacks and feminists are in a giant hiss, since then (together with everyone who is not a fascist pig).

Every friend of mine who voted for her 'xingou muito no twitter' (stupid meme), i.e., put in every virtual community that they wouldn't vote for her anymore. It seems that she is exchanging young bobos (her main urban vote in 2010) for fundamentalist christians.

Bad move, IMO.

So, here's the voters behavioural tendencies in 2013. Updated to 10/05.



Isn't Clarke that dead, or is it just the cat bounce?

So, after many kilos of moqueca, pirão, shrimp, crabs and sun, let's take this back.


Arraes, on the other hand, was elected congressman with such a share of the votes, He was able to boost the PSB caucus, completed with lots of pastors and evangelic community leaders from throughout the country – and some of the old socialists who were able to surf the evangelical wave. This had a lot of impact later, once It attached a part of the evangelic leadership to a social-christian speech (only speech, they are the most crooked of them all and have no other ideology than pork, but they were detached of automatic conservative support). He was also able to elect a good share of governors in the surrounding states. It was pretty clear, at this point, that the whole move was made to guarantee a share of 5% of the congressional voting.
This was also important to cement the PSB position as a governing partner to Lula and, as Roberto Freire with his ex-commie PPS decided that neo-liberalism was warmer and sexier than neo-keynesianism, attract fellow maverick Ciro Gomes to the party.


More of this when my digestive system recovers from seafood.

Te esconjuro pé-de-pato mangalô três vezes.

Google translates that as "I exorcise foot duck-Mangalô three times."

...xD hahahahahahahahhaahahhahahaha

Yo no creo em brujas, pero que las hay, las hay.

Architects are like whores

This is an insult to the honor or the oldest profession that will not be tolerated.

Don't be a prude. We have nothing against the professionals of the night.



Or do you think that neanderthal guy didn't prepare a good room for the girl He offered a mammuth thigh in exchange of sex?

Oh, I have nothing against master builders. It is only architects I hold in disdain.

Hmm...  Let me see if I can train my Ancient Greek.

Archi, arche (used as an adjective, not a substantive) => main, principal, master.
Tektōn => "artisan, in particular a carpenter or wood-worker or builder."

Sure, in some languages (including, Brazilian Portugues, unfortunely), Architect means nothing but a designer who's a Master Builder wannabe.

Te esconjuro pé-de-pato mangalô três vezes.

Out of the four choices:

1) Genesis with Gabriel
2) Genesis with Collins
3) Gabriel solo
4) Collins solo

I think that Peter Gabriel's solo work is actually the most interesting.  (And Collins solo is obviously the worst.)

This. I'm not a big fan of prog rock myself with few exceptions like some King Crimson's albums and certain German bands, however I've listened Tresspass and similar stuff because some of my friends like the band and the genre. My opinion of earlier Genesis' works is that I find them somewhat pretentious but I see some artistic merits. I prefer the first Genesis instead of Yes or Camel , but I find other 70's music pretty much interesting. Probably they don't resist very well the pass of time, but if you are a 70's symphonic rock freak you'll love them. I can't stand Collins, specially when he sings, so my choice between Gabriel and him is clear.

Man, just listen to Selling England by the Pound. I just wish more bands tried to be that pretensious . If you like 70's symphonic rock, It's almost perfect.

Architects are like whores

This is an insult to the honor or the oldest profession that will not be tolerated.

Don't be a prude. We have nothing against the professionals of the night.



Or do you think that neanderthal guy didn't prepare a good room for the girl He offered a mammuth thigh in exchange of sex?